


House with Hydrangea

by Framlingem



Series: Budgie!verse [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Prequel, Sappy, househunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/pseuds/Framlingem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We were going to buy that house in Dorset that you fell in love with, near Hengistbury Head, with those massive hydrangea in the garden. We were going to have a budgie. I was going to name him Eric! I remember, Remus."</p>
            </blockquote>





	House with Hydrangea

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to "Wanting More".

“Remus, this is ridiculous. I can’t see you. When James brings the Prongslet to visit the tyke’ll get lost forever in the garden and be eaten by the neighbour’s cats.” Sirius Black eyed the masses of blue flowers suspiciously. They looked tame enough, but they were evidently a jungle biding its time. He was sure of it.  
  
“Sirius, we can trim it. Harry’s only just a year old. He’ll hardly get lost if someone’s carrying him, will he? ‘Sides, Prongs isn’t a midget like you. If I can see over, so can James.”  
  
“You’re only three inches taller ‘n me. Bet you can’t.”  
  
“Yes I can. You’re over next to the blue ones, or at least the top of your head is. You’ve got a leaf stuck in your hair.”  
  
Sirius brushed away the offending piece of foliage and crouched down. Under the maze of bushes, he could just see the tips of Remus Lupin’s boots. They were covered in mud.  
“What the hell is this stuff, anyway, Moony? I’ve never seen anything like it.”  
“Yes, you have. You must have. It’s hydrangea. It’s everywhere. I’m sure every woman in the southern half of the country has some in her garden.”  
“Moony, I grew up in London. My mother grew – well, no she didn’t, she had someone grow them for her, but there were roses in our garden. Really dark red ones. With big spiky bits. Nothing this. This. Er. Fluffy. And blue. And pink. Look, shift so I can see you, will you? I’m tired of talking to your muddy boots.”  
  
Sirius didn’t realise that Remus had, in fact, moved while he was talking until something behind him cast a shadow and dropped a handful of earth on his head. Scrubbing at his head furiously, he staightened up and prepared to shout, but stopped when he saw Remus standing there, eyes dancing, with a smudge of dirt on his cheek and half a bush tangled in his hair.  
  
“I like the garden, Sirius. My mum always had hydrangea, but hers was always this washed-out green on account of something in the soil. I don’t know why there’re so many colours in this one, but I like it. And they smell nice.”  
  
“Hmph.”  
  
“This is just the front, Pads. We should probably make sure the house itself is all right before we offer a down payment.”   
  
With that, Remus disappeared amongst the hydrangea again, leaving Sirius to struggle through the overgrown bushes in a direction he hoped was housewards, muttering “down payments?” to himself. He smelled very fragrant by the time he reached the doorstep, a flat red boulder. He only just got through the door without ducking, and followed his ears around to the left, where he could hear Remus clattering happily in the kitchen. Remus turned as he came in.  
  
“Look at this, Sirius! These walls! Nobody’s plastered over them, it’s just the rock! Just the chinks have been filled in with mortar. And the size of the window in the dining room! It must have been enlarged at some point, I don’t think windows that size were possible when the house was built! I hate a dark house. My mum did too, made Dad put an Enlarging Charm on the windows. Thought it was very handy, being married to a wizard.”  
  
Remus chattered on as Sirius reflected on the irony of not being the one who was getting carried away for a change. It was nice to see Remus’s shoulders lose the tension they carried so much these days. He made occasional agreeable noises and watched Remus open and close each cupboard in turn, exclaimed dutifully over the size of the pantry, and followed him through the sitting room (“Built in bookshelves, fantastic!”) and into the bedroom. The walls were plastered over here, not very smoothly, and someone had made a bad job out of painting them a pale green. The bits of white plaster that poked through the paint looked like snow.  
  
“Oh! Look, Sirius, there’s even an attic! Here, make sure this chair doesn’t fall over.”  
  
Sirius winced as Remus totally failed to notice the dust that blew down out of the attic when he opened the trapdoor.   
  
“Oh _wow_ , Sirius, it’s all full of old things! Covered in dust, though, I don’t think anyone’s been up here in years. Oh. _Oh._ Hang on.”   
  
Sirius was mildly alarmed when Remus reached up through the hole in the ceiling with both hands and hauled himself up. He listened bemusedly to various scuffling noises, a crash (followed by an “ow”), and finally raised an eyebrow when Remus’s ecstatic face appeared in the hole.   
  
“Here, Sirius, grab this. Mind, it’s a bit dusty.”  
  
The object in question was covered in what could have been grey fur. “Master of the understatement, you are, Remus Lupin,” said Sirius, trying not to sneeze and failing miserably.  
  
“Bless you,” said Remus, now covered in grey fuzz himself and landing with a thump on the floor.  
“Thanks. Moony, what on Earth _is_ this?”  
  
“It’s a birdcage.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
“We could clean it up a bit. It’s a good size. Look, there’s a hook set in the corner – I bet that’s where it used to hang.”  
  
“I’d like a bird,” said Sirius. “Be nice, really. Bit of colour inside to balance out that mess in the front yard.”  
  
“Heh,” said Remus. “I can just picture you with a… oh, I don’t know, an Augury or a Phoenix or something.”  
  
Sirius looked miffed. “What? No. Something utterly ordinary. A budgie or something. We could call it…er…”  
  
“Melopsittacus?” offered Remus. “Mel for short?”  
  
“Eric.” Said Sirius decisively. “Eric The Budgie. Good name, Eric. Solid. Utterly normal.”  
  
“My aunt had a budgie once. Bloodthirsty little thing. Talked, though, with a Glaswegian accent. _Nae pickin’_! Of course, that was all my aunt ever used to say to it.”  
  
“I want a budgie. You get the hy… hy…”  
  
“Hydrangea.”  
  
“Yes, that, so I get a budgie.”  
  
“You like the house then?”  
  
“Yes, I like the house.” Not nearly as much as he liked Remus in the house, of course, and he drifted off into thoughts of Remus’s arse hanging out of the attic and muddy boots and was thus entirely unprepared for the kiss Remus bestowed on him. When he recovered, he grinned at Remus. “My lease runs out in November. We could move in then. I’ll call up the man in charge of the estate and make an offer.”  
  
He did, and the two of them spent the rest of the summer packing and planning, and then September came and the war escalated, and then in October the winds came to scatter them, and the house was resold to a Muggle widow named Edith. She kept the hydrangea, which grew even taller, and her tiny granddaughters were jungle explorers in it, and always brought some in for the supper table when they came to visit. It was a good house.

**Author's Note:**

> Importing old fic - this is from 2005


End file.
